


Grimm and Shady Stories.

by LarkandLioness



Category: Shades of London Series - Maureen Johnson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, F/M, Fairy Tale Style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 18:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16000811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LarkandLioness/pseuds/LarkandLioness
Summary: In which Boo runs an inn, Callum wants to be scared more than anything, and Rory's getting married.





	Grimm and Shady Stories.

Boo was peppy, with an indomitable will. Widowed at 20, she continued to run her late husband's inn even after she came back from a long visit to her family in another village, and heard her inn was haunted.

Apparently, a traveller and his possessions had vanished during one dark stormy night, and ever since then, every other guest who stayed in the room had nervously checked out in the middle of the night no matter how far they had to go.

However, Boo was undaunted, and insisted on staying in the ghost's room.

At midnight, she woke up to the sound of floorboards clattering as a bloody figure with a hole in its head climbed out and drifted slowly towards her.  
"Noble Lady," it whispered, "I beg you to give a murdered man an honourable burial, and bring my murderer to justice."  
Unafraid, Boo waved the ghost closer. He told her how he had tried to entreat other guests to help, but they all ran away in fright.  
Boo pulled a gold ring from her finger, laid in the gaping wound, and bound the ghost's head with her pocket handkerchief.  
With a look of profound gratitude, the ghost revealed the name of his killer and disappeared beneath the floor.

The next morning, Boo called a town meeting and revealed what had happened. Then she commanded that the floorboards in that room be torn up immediately.  
A half-decomposed corpse lay there, with Boo's ring in the hole in his skull and her handkerchief tied around his head.

Seeing this, one of the men there turned pale and tried to run. He was caught by the crowd, and soon confessed that he had robbed and murdered the traveller. He was swiftly hanged, and the corpse was buried in the village churchyard.

That evening, Callum arrived at the inn to spend the night. As he stepped into the main room he declared: "If I could just learn how to get the creeps! If only I could learn how to get the creeps!"  
Someone overheard what he was saying and started laughing. He said: "If that's really what you want, it can be arranged!"

"Now stop it," Boo said. "Think of all the foolish young men who have already lost their lives. It'd be too bad if those handsome black eyes never saw the light of day again!"  
But Callum insisted. "I want to learn how to get the creeps no matter how hard it is. That's why I went out into the world."

He refused to give the bloke a moment's peace until the man told him all about a haunted castle that was nearby. He could learn how to get the creeps just by spending three nights there. The king had promised his beautiful daughter to whoever could spend three nights in the castle, and break the curse on it. As if that wasn't enough, rumours said there were also great and priceless treasures hidden inside, guarded by evil spirits.

Many men had gone in there, the man said, but none of them ever came out.

The next day, Callum appeared before the king and said: "If you are willing, I would like to spend three nights in the haunted castle."  
The king liked the look of him, so he said: "You can ask for three things to take with you into the castle, but they must all be objects without life."  
Callum responded: "I would like some fire, a lathe, and a woodcarver's bench with a knife."  
The king let him take everything over to the castle during the day.

When night fell, Callum made up a bright fire, set up the bench in one of the rooms, put the knife next to it, and sat on the lathe.  
"Oh, if only I could learn how to get the creeps!" He said. "But I'm definitely not going to learn it here."

Towards midnight, he decided to stir the fire again. While he was blowing on the embers, suddenly, he heard a screeching noise in one corner. "Meow, meow, we're freezing to death!"  
"Tossers!" He cried out. "Why are you screeching like that? If you're cold, come sit by the fire and warm up!"

Just as he said that, two great big black cats jumped over to him, sat down on either side of him, and glared at him ferociously with their fiery eyes. After they had warmed themselves up, they said to him: "Well old pal, how about a game of cards?"  
"Why not?" He replied. "But first show me your paws."  
They put their paws out and stretched out their claws.  
"Damm!" He cried, "Your claws are way too long. Hold on a minute, and I'll trim them for you." And he picked up the cats by the scruff of the neck, put them on top of the carver's bench, and put their paws in the vise.  
"Now that I've seen your claws, I don't feel like playing cards anymore." And he killed the two of them and threw their bodies into the lake.

He sat down by the fire again, when suddenly, out of every nook and cranny of the castle, black cats and black dogs on red-hot chains appeared to flood the room.  
They made a horrible racket. They trampled on his fire, and tore it to pieces trying to put it out.  
Callum tolerated it for a while, then became so irritable that he grabbed his knife and lashed out at them, shouting "Bugger off, you wankers!" Some of them ran away, and he killed the rest and threw their bodies into the pond. When he returned, he blew on the embers again and warmed himself up.

Callum became sleepy sitting by the fire, and when he looked around, he saw a big bed lying in the corner.  
"Just what I need." He said as he crawled in. As his eyes closed, the bed started moving around on its own and started roaming around the castle. "Perfect!" He said "Go faster!" 

The bed started rocking violently, as if pulled by a team of six runaway horses. It flew through doors and up and down stairs, until crash, bang, boom! It rolled on top of him and buried him like an avalanche. Callum threw off the blankets and pillows, climbed out of the bed, and asked "Anyone else fancy a ride?" Then he lay by the fire and slept until morning.

The next day, the king came over, and when he saw Callum asleep on the ground, he thought that evil spirits must have killed him.  
"It's really too bad about this young man." He said sadly. Callum heard him, sat up, and declared, "Not so fast. I'm still here!" The king was astonished, but also pleased, and asked how his night was.  
"Pretty good," Callum replied. "Now that one night is over, the other two will be behind me soon."

When he returned to the inn, Boo's eyes nearly popped out of her head, and she gave him a tight hug.  
"I didn't think I'd ever see you alive again! Have you finally learned how to get the creeps?"  
"No." Callum said. "It's just hopeless. If only someone could teach me."

The second and third nights, Callum gambled with ghosts, tried to warm up a dead guy, and finally, trapped the ghost of an old man who was going to kill him, and beat him half to death with a crowbar.  
The old man whimpered and groaned, and offered to show Callum priceless treasures if he would just let him go.

So Callum freed him, and the old man showed him three chests of gold in the cellar, and one of them belonged to Callum.  
So the curse on the castle was broken, and the king offered him his daughter, as promised.  
But Callum turned down the offer to be with Boo.

Boo and Callum got married and lived together very happily, but Callum kept saying to himself: "If only I could get the creeps! If only I could get the creeps!" Boo began to find that very annoying. So one night, she caught a bucket of minnows, pulled back the covers while Callum was asleep, and dumped the contents all over him. The fish flopped and wiggled all over his cold body.

"Oh, I've got the creeps! I've got the creeps at last, at last!" He cried happily.

One day, there was a wedding party at the inn, and everyone there was asked to tell a story. The bride sat quietly and didn't utter a word. Finally the bridegroom said to her "Don't you have anything to say, my love? You have to tell us something."

"Very well," she replied. "I'll tell you about a dream I had.

'I was walking in the woods at twilight when I came upon a house in the deepest, darkest part of the forest. I didn't like the look of it because it was dark and spooky, but without conscious effort, one of my feet moved, and I walked in. No one was living there, but on the wall there was a cage, and in the cage was a one-legged bird with a broken wing that sang 

'Turn back, turn back, my pretty young bride,  
In a house of murderers you've arrived.'

Then she repeated those words. My dear, it was only a dream. I walked from one room to the next on wobbly legs, and each room was completely empty. I strained my ears to hear anything, but everything was as silent as the grave.

Finally, I went down to the cellar, where I saw a woman as old as the hills, Her head bobbing up and down.  
' "Can you tell me if my betrothed lives here?" ' I asked. She replied:  
(Here the bride imitated an old woman's voice)

" 'Oh, my poor child, you've stumbled into a den of murderers. Your betrothed lives here, but he's planning to lure you here, kill you, cook you, and eat you!" '

'My dear, it was only a dream.' She said as an aside to her groom, and went on:

The old woman hid me behind a barrel, and as soon as I was hidden, the robbers came home, dragging another girl behind them.

My groom slashed her neck, and she fell to the floor, dead! My heart was pounding, but it was only a dream. Then the robbers tore off her clothes, and then he removed her organs and dismembered her limbs, which were boiled and sprinkled with salt.

My dear, it was only a dream.

One of the robbers caught sight of a gold ring on the finger of the murdered girl, and when he couldn't pull it off right away, he took an ax and chopped it off. The ring flew through the air and into my lap...and here it is!"

And with these words, she held it up and showed it to everyone there.

The robber turned white as a ghost while she was telling the story. He grabbed a knife, jumped up, and attacked the bride, but the guests seized him and turned him in. He and his band were executed for their dreadful deeds.

A world-famous physician was nearby, and he was called in to look at the girl. When he came to her bedside, he fell in love at first sight with her. He didn't even care that Death, his godfather, was by her head, casting a nasty look at him, he just lifted the patient up and put her head where her feet had been.

Then he did his best to heal her, and soon her face wasn't scrunched up in pain. She was coming back to life! Just in time to see Death drag him out of the room. The physican was never seen again, but the two were reunited in death, and he explained that in order to save himself, he would have had to let someone else die, and he couldn't do that.

The two remained together forever in the afterlife.

**Author's Note:**

> Fairytales used: "The Ghost at Fjelkinge" - Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters.  
> "A Fairy Tale About A Boy Who Left Home to Learn About Fear."- The Annotated Brothers Grimm.  
> "The Robber Bridegroom" - The Annotated Brothers Grimm.  
> And lastly, "Godfather Death" - also from the Annotated Brothers Grimm.  
> I don't own anything, and any differences are results of my creativity...and my mistakes.  
> Another thing: If my tags seem a bit overkill, it's because I'd rather be safe than sorry!  
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
